Solheim Cup Expected To Bring Denver-Area Economy Millions

Members of the 2013 United States Solheim Cup Team and the European Solheim Cup Team pose for television and photographs on August 13, 2013 at the Colorado Golf Club in Parker. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

PARKER, Colo. (CBS4) – Team USA and Team Europe have been getting some practice in before the prestigious Solheim Cup tees off at the Colorado Golf Club in Parker on Friday.

The Solheim Cup is expected to pump millions of dollars into the local economy. Steve Mona was named the most powerful man in golf for 12 consecutive years. He is the CEO of the World Golf Foundation and joined CBS4’s Alan Gionet and Britt Moreno on the CBS4 Morning News to talk about economic impact of the tournament on Colorado.

“Based on the results from the Solheim Cup four years ago in Chicago, that generated an economic impact around $20 million,” Mona said. “And two years ago in Ireland it was closer actually to $57 million. So when it’s all tallied up for Denver it will be somewhere between those two numbers. So clearly it will be a significant impact on the local area.”

About 120,000 people are expected to attend the event over the weekend. Mona says the exposure could help bring other big golfing events back to Colorado.

“This will create tremendous exposure for Denver; it will create tremendous exposure for golf in Colorado. This will be arguably the biggest women’s sporting event of the year – any sport – so it will create tremendous interest through television. The Golf Channel will televise it for about 74 hours throughout the week. There will be about 29 million households worldwide that will tune in.”

Mona said on a full- and part-time basis the event will probably create about 1,000 jobs from restaurants, shuttle bus drivers, security and others.

“It’s a great week to be in the catering business for sure. It will be a significant week for the state of employment in the Denver area, no question,” Mona said.